Guwahati, Aug. 14: A countrywide elephant estimation carried out this year has reported elephants presence in Mizoram and Manipur after a long time.
The study found altogether 10,139 elephants in the Northeast.
The report, Synchronized Elephant Population Estimation India 2017, was released by Union minister for environment, forest and climate change Harsh Vardhan in New Delhi on Saturday.
A herd of five to seven elephants has moved to Mizoram in certain seasons, the report said. "This herd moves between India (Assam and Mizoram) and Bangladesh across the international border."
The study found seven elephants in Mizoram.
In Manipur, a herd of eight to nine elephants has been reported along the eastern banks of the Barak river, bordering Nagaland.
"This herd appeared to be isolated without having any habitat connectivity," the report said, adding that there are nine elephants in the state.
A senior official of Project Elephant directorate said elephants in Mizoram and Manipur have been reported after a long gap. The presence of the animal was reported in 2007 in Mizoram and in 2002 in Manipur.
A survey team spotted the movement of elephants in the two states, but it did not enumerate in this year's estimation..
In the Northeast, Assam has the maximum number of elephants, 5,719, followed by 1,754 in Meghalaya and 1,614 in Arunachal Pradesh. The population of elephants in north Bengal has been included in the Northeast population.
The census stated that Assam has the second highest elephant population in the country (5,719) after Karnataka (6,049).
The elephant population increased in Arunachal Pradesh from 890 in 2012 to 1,614 this year, in Tripura it rose to 102 from 59, Nagaland from 212 to 446 in and in Assam, from 5,620 to 5,719.
Meghalaya did not carry out a census in 2012 but the elephant population was 1,811 in the 2007 census.
The present "first report" of the elephant population estimation 2017 results only from the direct count method.
Though a nationwide population census exercise for elephants is conducted every five years, this is the first time that an all-India synchronised elephant census was carried out.
A population of 27,312 elephants was estimated from 23 states in the country by the direct count method.
The director-general of forests and special secretary, ministry of environment, forest and climate change, Sidhanta Das, said in the report that for the first time, all states have agreed to adopt a uniform set of methodologies to map elephant distribution, estimation of wild elephant populations by direct and indirect (dung count) methods and assessment of the structure of the populations for their demographic health.
In Arunachal Pradesh, elephants are distributed over 22 forest divisions and 30 to 60 per cent of the elephant distribution area from each division was selected for sampling by the direct count method.
A total of 139 sample blocks were randomly selected and enumerated in the state. The analysis indicated an overall density of 0.23 elephants per square km in the state.
In Assam, elephants are found in 36 forest divisions in the state.
A total area of 11,601 square km was sampled for block count direct method and an elephant density of 0.38 animals per square km was estimated in the state.
In Meghalaya, much of the elephant habitat is under community forest. A total of 232 blocks were sampled in the state and the overall density was 0.16 elephants per square km. The elephant density in Tripura is 0.10 per square km while in Nagaland, it is 0.45 square km.
The report stated that the results presented should be interpreted with caution.
"At this stage, comparisons should not be made between results from the 2017 census and the 2012 census, the reason being that the earlier census results were based on a mixture of direct and indirect count methods as reported by different states. In particular, no trend information should be made for individual forest divisions or states from these results," the report said.
In the 2012 census, 9,239 elephants were counted in the Northeast.
